Monday, September 08, 2008

Scientology has had a long and interesting history at the courts in using copyright law to remove content which it deems infringes its rights (*cough*censorship*cough*). Scientologists have repeatedly used copyright law in order to remove most references to aliens, Xenu, volcanoes, and DC-10 planes from public debate by alleging that many documents and depictions of scientologist beliefs are actually infringing its copyright.

Now the EFF reports that those whacky scientologists are at it again by issuing several DMCA take-down notices to several channels which criticise scientology.

It is sad that a movement needs to rely on preposterous copyright claims in order to keep what they actually believe from the public. But then again, there is reason to hide the fact that Scientologists believe in Xenu, the alien ruler of the Galactic Confederacy, who 75 million years ago brought billions of people to Earth, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. I mean, if word of this got out, they could not charge people for the secret, right?

The DMCA notices were filed by a company called "American Rights Counsel LLC". However, no such company exists in the United States:http://tinyurl.com/5pa76c

You can only make a DMCA take-down claim if you are the copyright owner, or if you are legitimately entitled to do so. So it was perfectly acceptable to assume that the claim came from Scientology HQ, as filing a fraudulent DMCA claim could have negative consequences for the individual(s) involved.

Furthermore, I mentioned that the Church of Scientology has been involved in the past in misuse of copyright law to remove content it objects to. This is in character with their modus operandi.

The CoS (aka L'Ron's Love Den) uses its members to do its dirty work. The DMCA actions should be taken at face value; that is, an attempt to destroy people's right to Free Speech online. To Hell with the Sci-Ti's !!